A bitter struggle is taking place over the right to oversee the reconstruction of Gaza, even as the leadership of Hamas emerges from the rubble of areas that were devastated by 23 days of Israeli bombardment.

The international community insists that it cannot channel billions of dollars in reconstruction aid to Hamas, and is calling for the involvement of the more moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. But Hamas is insisting on sole control of Gaza's rebuilding, as well as claiming moral leadership of the Palestinian people.

In the week since Israel and Hamas declared unilateral ceasefires to bring an end to more than three weeks of fighting, in which almost 1,500 Gazans died, the movement has acted rapidly to assert its control over assistance to civilians.

Sitting on huge cash reserves, Hamas has said that it will begin distributing emergency payments of €4,000 to those who have lost homes, and has already been handing out coupons for food as well as aid, some of it seized from foreign and international donors.

The role of Hamas in the reconstruction effort, and the group's tense relations with Abbas and his Fatah movement, have come to permeate every corner of Gaza's bruised and bloodied society.

At the al-Filisteen mosque in the Rimal area of Gaza City on Friday, the imam was preaching the necessity of brotherhood and unity. But on the steps after prayers, Hamas's economics minister explained what the conditions for Palestinian unity involved. Senior Hamas officials are demanding that the conditions for reconciliation should include an end to negotiations with Israel and to the peace process, a unity agreement under a banner of "resistance", and continued Hamas control of Gaza.

"Everyone recognises the need for reconciliation among Palestinians," said Abu Rushdi Zaza. "It will happen immediately if the Palestine Liberation Organisation [dominated by Fatah] can be rebuilt. But it must be understood that Hamas is the government. If international institutions want to do rebuilding projects in Gaza, then that is fine - but they must do it under our supervision.

"Ramallah [the West Bank city that is Abbas's seat of government] has no authority here," he added. "The president's office has no authority. Abbas is no longer [prime minister]. Salam Fayyad is not a minister."

Zaza's comments were echoed last week by other Hamas figures on the West Bank as well, who accused Abbas's administration of in effect siding with Israel in the war against Hamas by ordering the continuing campaign of arrests aimed at Hamas figures and banning demonstrations in support of the Islamic organisation.

"It is unbelievable that, all over the world, people were supporting Gaza," Yazid Khader, a spokesman for the movement, said last week. "Yet here on the West Bank people were unable to do so. We ask: will the blood spilled in Gaza be enough for the Palestinian Authority to move towards reconciliation with us?"

Calling for the release of hundreds of Hamas prisoners from Palestinian jails, he reiterated that only Hamas could be responsible for the rebuilding of Gaza. "We call this the battle of reconstruction. And Hamas and the resistance organisations are the only ones that can be in charge. No one else."

Mahmoud Musleh, a Palestinian legislative council member aligned with Hamas, added: "The organisation that should be talking for the Palestinian people is the PLO. But it has not been speaking. If it does not rehabilitate itself, there will be dramatic changes. At present it does not represent the Palestinian people. They can longer make decisions. They do not own the power."

He continued: "There is a new balance of power emerging. For the first time, through the steadfastness of the resistance in Gaza, we have seen Israel's project halted."

Other Hamas supporters said that, in standing on the sidelines for the first time in its history while other Palestinians fought, the PLO had revoked its claim to lead the Palestinian struggle.

Even those regarded as Hamas moderates, such as Ghazi Hamad, who yesterday was helping to co-ordinate the aid effort for Hamas at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, was sceptical about how reconciliation could be achieved.

"I think that, after all this bloodshed, it is difficult for people to be neutral and tell the truth. There are some [Fatah] people in Ramallah accusing us of robbing humanitarian assistance. It is not true. They accuse us of killing Fatah people during the Israeli attack. There were mistakes, but that does not mean that is a policy."

Describing how he saw a future Palestinian policy towards Israel, he added: "My personal position is that it needs to be mixed. You cannot have resistance without politics, or politics without resistance."

"There is a huge distance between the two sides," said Gazan writer and political analyst Talal Okal. "There is a feeling in Hamas that they won a victory. They want this victory to be represented in any reconciliation talks with Fatah. They think they should set the agenda. They have been trying to do it by force, both during the war and afterwards. They want to show that they control Gaza. They do not want any other party to show itself."

Hamas's greatest problem is likely to come not from Fatah but from ordinary Gazans. It may have access to hundreds of millions of dollars, smuggled through the tunnels under the Rafah crossing, which are now operating again. But as Faisal Abu Shalah, a Fatah member of the legislative council for Gaza points out, while Hamas insists on controlling the reconstruction, Israel will not lift its economic blockade.

"They have the power and the money. They can give people money to rebuild," he said last week. "But with what? There is not a single bag of cement to be had on the Gaza Strip.

"Look at my window," he points to a large frame, its glass blown out, replaced with sheet plastic. "Do you think they can smuggle panes of glass or window frames through the Rafah tunnels? Hamas has the money, but it still cannot help the people in their long suffering."

And if one place is the symbol of the destruction wreaked in Gaza, it is the demolished houses of the Samouni family in Zeitoun, a place where the stink of death still seeps from out of the rubble.

A member of the family, who lost his father and his son, asks not to be identified for fear of being beaten by Hamas - as others were during the war - for criticising it. "No one from Hamas has come to offer us help. None of the leaders has been here. We were farmers, not fighters with a militant faction.

He pulls out a crumpled photograph showing a wedding scene. "This was my father. This, my son. After what happened to us here, I hate the name Hamas."